It took him time and much coaxing to calm Tai down, a pleasurable enough activity since her body responded to his deft caresses even if she did not wish it to. When she did see what he had been trying to prove, she herself made a suggestion: a cover from their bed since the night wind was proving chill.

“Maybe Golanth could bring us some wine?” she proposed.

Golanth peered down from the terrace above, his eyes whirling with some anxiety. I don’t know how Zaranth brings things you want.

“Maybe we should try him with trundlebugs in his way,” Tai said, giving her lover a sly grin. “If he does it Zaranth’s way, they don’t get upset and spread that stink of theirs.”

We don’t have trundlebugs in Benden, Golanth told his rider but he was plainly curious about how Zaranth had managed to move things around. Dragons moved themselves and their riders across great distances all the time; and recently Golanth had moved between times, but this moving something else was another matter altogether—one he had never attempted and could not do.

“We’ll find some then,” F’lessan said aloud as well as mentally to his bemused bronze. Some stray memory—associated with the time Farli and Ruth had gone to the Yoko—hovered at the back of his mind. “Will you have time tomorrow to help us locate some?” he asked Tai.

“In the afternoon, perhaps, but I did volunteer to help Erragon calculate orbits.”

“Well, if you should see any trundlebugs at Cove Hold, give us a shout.”

“Why not come help me calculate orbits?”

“A splendid notion since you know very well that I need the practice. Speaking of practice—” Carefully he lifted the thong of the binoculars from her neck and put them to one side and practiced making love to her. That was the most important reason he had brought the mattress out to the terrace and suggested they lie down and challenge each other at identifying stars.

When they met the next afternoon on the west side of Cove Hold where Tai had already spotted trundlebugs, they landed. Golanth was still dubious about arranging himself in the direct path of a mother trundlebug and two offspring, and Zaranth crouched behind a nearby thicket to encourage him. F’lessan and Tai stood in the shadow of a large frond tree as spectators.

Sublimely unaware of the obstacle set in its path, the trundlebug continued.

“Zaranth is telling Golanth that it’s just a matter of turning it.”

With a wide and mischievous grin, F’lessan closed his fingers around Tai’s hand.

“My very dear green, I can hear everything she says.”

“Can you?” Tai shot him a surprised glance. She knew that Ramoth and Mnementh, even Monarth and Path, spoke to each other’s people.

The unmistakable stink of trundlebug interrupted this revelation.